Sani Abacha arriving at Freetown on a visit to Sierra Leone in 1998, the year in which he died JAMES FASUEKOI/APSwitzerland is to return $321 million to Nigeria of the public funds looted by its former dictator Sani Abacha after a deal brokered by the World Bank. The cash was originally deposited in Luxembourg but confiscated by a Swiss court in late 2014. It represents just a small part of the estimated $2.2 billion Abacha embezzled from the country’s central bank during his military rule from 1993 until his death in 1998. Switzerland returned $500 million to Nigeria in 2006 after legal action made European banks relax secrecy regulations and allowed the first payment of looted funds to be transferred to Africa. “In accordance with policy on repayment of national assets taken illegally, Switzerland has agreed with Nigeria and the World Bank to return nearly…

Source: The Times December 05, 2017 17:13 UTC